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DEFENCE OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRACY AGAINST THE 

ATTACK OF JUDGE DOUGLAS— CONSTITUTIONAL, 

RIGHTS OF THE STATES. 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. J. P. BEN J A HI 




OF LOUISIANA. 



DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAY 22, 1S60. 



Mr. President: When we met here in December the public mind was deeply 
stirred. It was stirred by an occurrence which had taken place for the first 
time in our history — the invasion of one of the States of the Confederacy by a 
band of fanatics for the avowed purpose of interfering with its domestic insti- 
tutions and setting its slaves at liberty. The whole country was deeply stirred, 
but especially stirred was the South, and this universal excitement found im- 
mediate vent in Congress. Scarcely had we met, when numerous resolutions 
were placed upon our table by different Senators, which, on the 2d of Febru- 
ary, were ordered, by a resolution of the Senate, to be printed together. The 
first was a resolution submitted by the honorable Senator from Ohio, (Mr. Pugh,) 
who, on the 15th of December, proposed that the Committee on Territories 

" Be instructed to inquire into the expediency of repealing so much of the acts approved 
September 9, 1850, for the organization of territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah, 
as require that all the laws passed by the legislatures of those Territories shall be submitted 
to Congress for approval or rejection." 

That was offered on the 15th of December, before even the House of Repre- 
sentatives had been organized. To that an amendment was offered by the Sen- 
ator from Iowa, (Mr. Harlan,) which I shall not read. The next was a resolu- 
tion submitted on the 16th of January by the Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Doug- 
las,) in relation to instructions to the Committee on the Judiciary to report a 
bill for the protection of the States and Territories of the Union against inva- 
sion. Next, on the 18th of January, were resolutions submitted by the Sena- 
tor from Mississippi, (Mr. Brown.) Next, were amendments to those resolutions 
submitted by the Senator from Minnesota, (Mr. Wilkinson.) Next, were the 
resolutions submitted by the other Senator from Mississippi, (Mr. Davis,) ob 
the 2d of February; and, finally, to those resolutions amendments were offered 
by the Senator from Delaware, (Mr. Saulsbury.) 

Here, then, was .a series of propositions before the Senate, seven in number, 
all directed to the question of slavery in the States and Territories, and all 
ordered by the Senate " to be printed together for discussion." Under these 
circumstances, it became obvious that, unless some concert of action was had 
by gentlemen who professed the same political principles in relation to this 
vital issue now before the country, the discussion must be confused and point- 
less. If every member offered bis own resolutions in his own language, and if 
there was no concert among those who entertained the same principles, the 
time of the Senate would be needlessly exhausted, and we should come to no 
practical result. Under these circumstances, a suggestion was made, from what 
quarter 1 know not, and certainly it is not of the slightest consequence, that 
the members of the Democratic party, who were supposed generally to enter^ 
tain sentiments in accordance with each other, should meet and should agree 
upon the phraseology of the resolutions that they were disposed to support, and, 

Printed by Lemuel Towers, at $1 50 per hundred copies. 



/ 



b.434, 

2 

after harmonizing upon that phraseology should a-rroo fn *t»„A u u 

view to get a vote 5 the Senate upon^tTp^StLT^tS feSpta 

m qS£2T ^ P^ S ° fa1 ' a8 that P ar ^ ™ Resented by tneTnaters 

« his seat; 1 should have waited for him if I had the slilhtU fcn f ^ 
him in the Senate ; he was not here yesterday -he is not her, <7* ^ 

taken to defend his individual claims to the Presidency of the UnirTs£?i 
and, in so doing, has divided out his elahorately-PreDafed sneeoh ?«£** J 
portion, .some of which alone shall I attempt tVanlSe S SwSSS 
answer bemuse that Senator thought: proper to arraign m'y State and SarraSn 
me ; with other Democratic States and other Democratic Senators for dS 
to discuss the propositions and resolutions now before the Senate 

More than half of that Senator's speech was devoted to the perfectly idle and 
unnecessary fa,* of proving that those principles which he now asseV to be 
the true constitutional principles under which fch« Territories of the United 
Stature governed were advocated by him as such years and years ago ; and 
therefore he undertook to prove to the Senate and to 'the counte — to which he 
appealed so often-tbat there has been no inconsistency in his course, and hat 
rf he and Ins brother Democratic Senators are at issue'upon any poin^, it is we 
arid not he, who have proved inconsistent. I shall return to that sir in a 
moment. ' ' J 

The next proposition of , l .he honorable Senator from Illinois was, that he was 
the embonimeut of the Democratic party, and that all who dissented from tM 
modest proportion were rebels. He next arraigned all his DemocrSS 
ren m this Chamber for dann. to offer resolutions to the Senate declaratory 
of constitutiona principles; and he called the resolutions now before lis a can- 
cus platform, winch he said the Charleston convention, which represents him 
treated with the scorn and contempt that they merited 

Next he said that seventeen Democratic States of this Union, aud all his 
m-other Democratic Senators who d,d not agree with him, were disunion*!, 
and he «rra,gi,ed_them as such. He said that they were traveling on the hi- I 
road to the disunion of' these States. Then, in the plenitude of his indulgence 
he to.d us thut we were s.nnmg through ignorance and did not know what 
road we were traveling, and, with princely magnanimity, tendered his clemency 
and his pardon to those who. after, being enlightened "by his counsel, £2 
tender repentance And after having done all that-having attacked even 
Democratic state m the Union, and almost every Democratic Senator in 2 
body he closed with a statement that all that he had said was in self-deLce 
that he attacked nobody, and that the world should know, if h« ever spdke 
.gain ,t would be as be had just then spoken, to defend himself from at act 

W Mr. President lest I should be supposed to have at all exaggerated in 
this statement, w hnt the honorable Senator from Illinois thought proper to JJ 
SSftS S ntK l!,r lTi " ? pm-ely constitutional and" political ££ 



The resolutions lay still. T^±g£*£^^ 

the Charleston convention, I voted aw ins he I o s p « n . s w lo tfce 

ffion^r^ 

it, and ratified the old platform." i.^'*v« 

T anneal to the Senate whether or not this is self-defence. I appeal to ohe 
Sen2 P whether or not this he, as 1 have stated it to be, an arraignment by the 
hZrable Senator from Illinois against the action of almost ^e en^re ^body o 
Ms brother Democrats— a perversion of the truth and the facts a misiepreser, 
&onrf"£JoeS5 ; for this, namely, that the meeting of the Senators who 
adopted a -erie of reso utions, which they believed to be sound constitutional 
Srine was based upon the fact that a large series of independent resolu ion* 
had bee. put before the Senate, and that some concerted action of the party m 
relation to P ?lose resolutions was just as necessary as the concerted action of 
[he nrtii who supported the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854, when the honor* 
ble Senator from Illinois called them into council every morning almost of 
bfe dnriS controversy. When that bill was pend.ng ; when amendments 
iere offered around the Chamber, for the purpose of concentrating action and 
preventing hat division of the party which might be taken f vantage of by 
IK opponents upon the floor of the Senate, the honorable Senator f™£ ™ in0 J 
called Aether those who supported the bill every morning, and f&Jg* 
Son? and changed and modified the phraseology to suit all and to obtain 
Sfe a-sent of all. That was the purpose of the Democratic Senators who me 
o e conKder Solutions that SenatLk »«-^fr^mott^tta^ 
they did ; and that is what has been perverted into an attempt to dictate 

P ta7^^^^r T tS-there might be no possibility of misreprese nting 
^resolutions as being the dictation of a ^V™^**™^ 1 ^ 
noned the consideration of the resolutions until alter the paitj had met ana 
Se what Se Senator from Illinois says is its platform; and that very post- 
ponem-Us bought up here as an arraignment ^^Sb^ nai^n 
fors, who are now peaking on these resolutions after ""V^™*"?^. 
made as he says. It was with the view, as he now says to affect his P^siden 
Sal chances. 1 leave that accusation for what it is worth. I have stated the 
accusation and stated the defence. . . „ , ... 

Net sir I say that the honorable Senator from Illinois, not satisfied with 
diseulin' the constitutional questions now before the Senate "P™^"™^ 
S thoueht Proper to arraign seventeen Democratic States of this Union as 
SS P He accompanies it with the suggestion that he forgives us^be- 
cause w^ Sow not what we do. I say, sir, the fact that the Senator from I - 
hnos arraigns seventeen Democratic States, and nearly all Ins Democratic 
brethren here as disunionists, I will also show, by an extract from h.s speech 
tl If other day' of a few lines. He tells us that these resolutions are a Yancey 
pUttm; and that the resolutions reported to the Charleston convention i by > 
Majority of the States of this Union, by the almost unanimous assent .of ! the 
Semocitic States of the Union, was a Yancey platform also; and tjat\.» 
cey made the platform for the party, made the caucus platform, and made 
the platform for the majority of the Democratic States of the Union; and tha. 
all together with Yancey, ^e are disunionists. Here is his language, sir: 

« The Yancey platform at Charleston, known as the majority "P '^ ™ 1 ^ 60 ™^. 1 ^ 
resotuUons. insistence and spirit and Ifegal eff fee t was the ;« a "^ ™ \\* U |enaSH 
lutions; the same as the resolutions now under discussion, and upon wmcn 

^ YdS ™e that any gentleman advocating this platform ta ; the Bjjptt "*-«*; 
dissolution of the Union. This'piatfonn demands ^^ n ?**£™ffi^ "ifitoSa 

attdthatfact shall he ascertained judicially, then Congress is to pledge itself to pass laws 
force the Territories to have it." 

So, sir, these resolutions are a "Yancey platform," a caucus platform, a .dis- 
union platform ; and the purpose is, of all who support them and vote for thern, 
after the people of a Temtoiy shall have decided that « they do not want 
very and that fact has b«en ascertained judicially, to get Congress to force ate- 



very on them." That is the deliberate statement, prepared and put forth to 
the world, revised and corrected by the honorable Senator from Illinois. Mr. 
President, my State voted for that platform. I shall vote for this caucus-Yan- 
cey platform, if that helps the Senator from Illinois. If it helps him to give 
nicknames, and he thinks that an appeal to the people of the country will be 
helped by accusing Democratic States and Democratic Senators of being led by 
a gentleman whom he supposes to be unpopular, and calls them supporters of 
a Yancey platform and of a disunion platform, let him have the benefit of such 
appeal. 1, for my part, accept the responsibility, and stand by the resolutions 
and the platform. But, sir, at the same time I deny that there is the slightest 
approach to truth or correctness in the lineaments ascribed by the honorable 
Senator from Illinois to the platform adopted by the majority of the Democratic 
States at Charleston, or to the principles which are here advocated by the al- 
most unanimous vote of the Democratic Senators. I deny that there is the 
least approach to truth in his picture. No man here has called upon Congress 
to force slavery upon an unwilling people. No man here has called upon Congress 
to intervene and force slavery into the Territories. No man has asked Congress 
to do what the gentleman speaks of in another part of his speech as making a 
slave code for the Territories — that being another of the slang phrases which 
the honorable Senator from Illinois adopts from Republican gentlemen at the 
North, and parades to the American people as proof that he is sound on this 
subject of the Democracy, and that we are unsound. « No man has asked for 
such a thing, or anything approaching to such a thing, as I shall proceed here- 
after to show 

Now, Mr. President, having shown to you the charges made by the honorable 
Senator from Illinois against the Democratic States of this Confederacy, and 
the Democratic Senators in this Hall — which charges 1 repel and mean to dis- 
prove to-day — I desire to read a few words which I find at the close of his 
speech, for the purpose of showing how nearly and how closely his conclusions 
and his speech accord with what 1 have just stated: 

"I am sorry to have been forced to occupy so much of the time of the Senate J but the Sen- 
ate will bear me witness that I have not spoken, in the last two years, on any one of these 
topics, except when assailed, and then in self-defence. You will never find the discussion re- 
newed here again by me, except in self-defence. I have studiously avoided attacking any man, 
because I did not mean to give a pretext for renewing the assault on me ; and the world shall 
understand that if my name is brought into this debate again, it will be done aggressively, as 
an assault on me ; and if I occupy any more time, it will be only in self-defence/' 

Mr. President, this mode of discussing public subjects is a very convenient 
one — arraigning every gentleman sitting here on this side of the Chamber, attack- 
ing them in the most offensive of all manners; spreading that attack, revised and 
corrected, in the official columns of the Globe, issuing it out to the world; and 
then saying that if any man should raise his voice here to repel it, it will be an 
assault on him, and the world shall know that he does not speak except in self- 
defence. He makes it impossible to answer his charges without attacking his 
course, and then says he is driven by self-defence to fresh assaults! I am afraid, 
Mr. President, that I shall be obnoxious to the charge of assailing the honora- 
ble Senator from Illinois, if it be indeed an assault to repel a most wanton and 
unprovoked attack. 

More than one-half the speech of the honorable Senator from Illinois was de- 
voted, as I said before, to the purpose of proving his own consistency, from 
some period which I do not care to go back to, down to 1854 and 1856, and the 
present time. He says he is now consistent with the principles that he then 
professed. I do not deny it. I do not know that anybody denies it. On the 
contrary, that is the precise charge brought against him, as I shall proceed to 
show. The precise charge is that, having agreed with us that he would aban- 
dou those principles, if they were proved to be false, he now flies from his bar- 
gain ; he now denies what lie agreed to; he now refuses to be bound by that 
to which he had previously given his consent; and defends himself, because, as 
he says, he is now in accordance with what he was then. I do not propose to 
go back beyond the year 1857; because every one here knows that, up to the 
year 1857, the honorable Senator from Illinois had the cordial friendship and 
biiport of all the members of the Democratic party. Every one on this floor 



knows that, up to the year 1857, the honorable Senator from Illinois was 
looked upon with pride and confidence as one of the acknowledged leaders of 
the Democratic party. 

Now, Mr. President, is it not a subject deserving of some inquiry ; will it not 
naturally suggest itself to the American people to inquire how happens it that 
a gentleman, who for a long series of years possessed the confidence and admi- 
ration of his party, upon whom they looked with pride, whom they acknowl- 
edged as a leader, and for whom they reserved their choicest honors, should sud- 
denly find himself separated from every Democratic State in the Union, and 
from the whole body of his Democratic associates here and in the other House. 
What ma^ic has effected this change in the universal sentiment towards him ? 
What occult power has been brought to bear upor the Senator from Illinois, 
that to day he complains and whines that he is the subject of a common assault 
by gentlemen who were formally with him, and wh j, he says, are pursuing him 
with ruthless malignity? How happens it that th >. Senator from Illinois for- 
got to touch that part of the recent history of the country in his speech ? I 
propose to commend myself to the consideration o' that part of the history. 

When, in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill was before us — I must be guilty of 
some repetition; it is impossible to avoid it when it question has been worn so 
threadbare — there were three distinct sentiments professed upon this floor in 
relation to the government of the Territories of the United States. The gen- 
tlemen on the other side of the Chamber professed the principle that the Con- 
gress of the United States had the power to govern the Territories, and that 
there was to be found in the Constitution of the United States no prohibition 
against exercising that power so as to exclude slavery ; and they therefore went 
for excluding slavery from the Territories by the power of Congress, which had 
an admitted power to govern them. The southern members of the Democratic 
party, with some of the members from the North, agreed with the Republican 
party that the Congress of the United States had the undoubted power to gov- 
' ern the Territories; but they held that there was a limitation to that power to 
be found in the Constitution of the United States, which limitation prevented 
the Congress of the United States from exercising the power to exclude slavery ; 
but, on the contrary, imposed it as a duty upon Congress to protect property 
in slaves, just as all other property. The third school had at its head, at that 
time, the venerable Senator from Michigan, now in the Department of State. 
With him were joined the honorable Senator from Illinois, and the honorable 
Senator from Michigan then, Mr. Stuart, I think. They held that the sole 
power of Congress was to institute an organic act, as they termed it; that the 
sole power was to give, as it were, a constitution to the Territories by which 
the people might be brought together in organized form, and that when the 
people were thus brought together in an organized form, in a legislative capacity, 
they possessed inherent sovereignty, just as a State, and had a right to do in 
relation to slavery just as they pleased. 

Those were the three principles advocated upon this floor. I think I state 
them correctly. I try to do so, at all events. When we were discussing the 
principle to be introduced into the Kansas-Nebraska bill, we all agreed that we 
were opposed to the principles advocated by the Republican party. We all 
agreed that whether Congress had the power or not to exclude slavery from the 
Territories, it was injurious to exercise that power; that Congress ought not to 
intervene. That is wliat we said, and all the Senators from the South concur- 
red with that. When we came further to determine what was to be done, af- 
ter having decided that Congress should not intervene, we split. The Demo- 
crats of the South, and some of the Democrats of the North agreeing with them, 
in our caucus meetings, in discussing the principles of the bill, in framing its 
provisions, in preparing it for discussion in the Senate, said: "The Territorial 
Legislature has no power to exclude the people of the South, or their property, 
from the Territories, because the Territories are governed by Congress as a 
trustee for all the States; the Territorial Legislature can get no power but the 
power that Congress gives it, and Congress itself has no power to exclude our 
property from the Territories, which belong to us as well as to the free States." 
The Senator from Illinois said differently. The Senator from Illinois said that 
he believed the Territorial Legislature had the right, whilst the people of the 



Territory were in a territorial organization, to exclude slavery if they pleased. 
We split on that ; we could not agree. I admit all that the Senator said here 
the other day as to it. He said so then ; he says now. I complain exactly of 
that consistency ; because when we could not agree, he said that he would 
agree with us to submit it to the courts, and if the courts decided in our favor, 
he would give up and join us; and we agreed if the courts decided against us, 
that we would give up and join him. It is that very consistency that is com- 
plained of; and I shall proceed to prove it. 

It is bad faith when the honorable Senator no longer worships at the shrine 
of constitutional principle. Professing to agree to leave the matter to the de- 
cision of the courts,, professing to respect the courts in their decisions, he has 
gone astray after false gods, and is now worshiping the idols of evasion and 
circumvention. Sir, I do not state of my own authority the position of the 
honorable Senator from Illinois, I read again from his speech the other day. 
He is speaking of the power of a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery. 
The Senator from Illinois is right in saying that his opinion was clearly ex- 
plained at the time. He asserted the power in the Territorial Legislature: 

" I believe the power existed ; others believed otherwise ; we agreed to differ ; we agreed to 
refer it to the judiciary ; we agreed to abide by their decision; and I, true to my agreement, 
referred my colleague to the courts to find out "whether the power existed or not. The fact 
that I referred him to the courts has been cited as evidence that I did not think individually 
that the power existed iu a Territorial Legislature. After the evidences that I produced yes- 
terday, and the debate just read upon the Trumbull amendment, no man who was an actor in 
those scenes has an excuse to be at a loss as to what my opinion was." 

The Senator from Illinois is right; his opinion was clearly expressed at the 
time. He asserted the power in the Territorial Legislature: 

" But it was not my opinion that was to govern ; it was the opinion of the court on the ques- 
tion arising under a territorial law after the Territory should have passed a law upon the sub- 
ject. Bear in mind that the report introducing the bill was that these questions touching the 
right of property in slaves were referred to the local courts, to the territorial courts with a 
right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States When that case shall arise, and 
the court shall pronounce its judgment, it will be binding on me, on you, sir, and on every' 
good citizen. It must be carried out in good faith ; and all the power of this Government — 
the Army, the Navy, and the militia — all that we have — must be exerted to carry the decision 
into effect in good faith, if there be resistance. Do not bring the question back here for Con- 
gress to review the decision of the court, nor for Congress to explain the decision of the court. 
The court is competent to construe its own decisions, and issue its own decrees to carry its 
decisions into effect. 

" We are told that the court has already decided the question. If so, there is an end of the 
controversy. You agreed to abide by it ; I did. If it has decided it, let the decision go into 
effect ; there is an end of it ; what are we quarrelling about ? Will resolutions of the Senate 
give any additional authority to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States? 
Does it need an endorsement by the Charleston convention to give it validity ? If the decis- 
ion is made, it is the law of the land, and we are all bound by it. If the decision is not made, 
then what right have you to pass resolutions here, prejudging the question, with a view to in- 
fluencing the views of the court ? If there is a dispute as to the true interpretation and mean- 
ing of the decision of the court, who can settle the true construction except the court itself, 
when it arises in another case? Can you determine by resolutions here what the decision of 
the court is, or what it ought to be, or what it will be ? It belongs to that tribunal. The Con- 
stitution has wisely separated the political from the judicial department of the Government. 
The Constitution has wisely made the courts a co-ordinate branch of the Government ; as in- 
dependent of us as we are of them. Sir, you have no right to instruct that court how they 
shall decide this question in dispute. You have no right to define their decision for them. 
When that decision is made, they will issue, the proper process for carrying it into effect ; and 
the Executive is clothed with the Army, the Navy, and the militia, the whole power of the 
Government, to execute that decree. All I ask, therefore, of you, is non-intervention ; hands 
off. In the language of the Georgia resolutions, let the subject be banished forever from the 
Halls of Congress or the political arena, and referred to the Territories, with a right of appeal 
to the courts ; and there is an end to the controversy." 

Mr. President, I have read that extract at length, that all may see the pre- 
cise point at which the honorable Senator from Illinois has separated himself 
from his Democratic brethren and the Democratic party. I have him here now, 
in his speech before the Senate the other daj 7 , declaring that that was the bar- 
gain; that whenever the court made the decision he would stand by it; that 
he had always intended to stand by it ; that it was binding on him in good 
faith ; and that the whole power of the Government should, with his consent, 
be called into operation for the purpose of carrying out the decision. I shall 
proceed presently' to show that the Senator from Illinois, not once, but again 
and again, since 1857,- has been engaged, in conjunction with gentlemen of the 
Black Republican party, first in endeavoring to explain away the decision that 



has been made, and next that he has made the broad and opsn avowal in the 
face of the country that, if the decision is made, it. shall not go into effect. 
That is the arraignment of the honorable Senator from Illinois. Let him not 
go back to 18-10, or 1844, or 1848, or 1852, or 1854, when he had the party 
with him, nor even to 1856; but let him come down to the decision of theSn- 
preme Court of the United States, in the spring of 1857, and let him follow me 
while I pursue his devious track since that day. 

Early in the year 1857 the Died Scott decision was pronounced by the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. If my recollection serves me, the decision 
had not been printed when we adjourned. A number of us, I think, subscribed 
together' to obtain a number of copies from the public printer, agreeing that 
he should print such a number as we believed the innate would be willing to 
have printed when it reassembled; and if the Senate declined to print it when 
it assembled, we made ourselves responsible to him for the price. It was de- 
sired that the decision of the Supreme Court should go to the country. The 
dissenting opinions of the two judges, who were in the minority, had been 
printed. The opinion of the court was still unknown. The result of its opin- 
ion was pretty well ascertained; but in a matter of that magnitude it was 
deemed of the last importance to have the very language of the court, and to 
have it spread broadcast through the land. Now, Mr. President, we are told 
that this decision decides nothing of what was at issue at the time; nothing of 
that issue which the honorable Senator from Illinois agreed to leave to the 
courts. I do uot know any better way of ascertaining what a court decided 
than to do as the honorable Senator from Illinois has advised us to do — 
take the court's own statement of what it decided. <Jn reference to this Dred 
Scott decision, it will be observed by any gentleman who chooses to refer to 
the nineteenth volume of Howard's Reports, ihat every judge gave his opinion 
Seriatim; because there were numerous questions on which all did not choose 
to be bound, without giving a statement of their particular views; but Mr. 
Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court. The rest were mere 
statements of particular views. "Mr. Chief Justice Taney," is the expression, 
"delivered the opinion of the court;" and Mr. Chief Justice Taney is said to 
have made a syllabus of the points which he, the organ of the court, considered 
to have been decided by the court. 

Now, in regard to the attempt to get rid of the authority of this decision on 
the gronnd that the questions were not before the court, and that they were 
obiter dicta, allow me to say this: it is true that when a precise point is before 
a court, the judgment of the court upon that point is alone that which binds 
the parties; but no lawyer will contradict the assertion, that those principles 
which the court itself lays down as being the basis updn which it arrives at its 
conclusion, are decisions by the court; they are not obiter dicta. Obiter dicta., 
merely passing sayings, are such views thrown out by a judge in the course of 
his reasoning as have no reference to the points upon which he is deciding the 
case; but whenever, in order to reach a result, the court proceeds to give those 
reasons for that result, and in giving those reasons fur arriving at the result, it 
lays down the principles upon which the result is reached, I say those princi- 
ples are considered as decided by the court. If unnecessary to its decision, 
they have less weight; but if the court itself declares the principles that it 
lays down to be necessary to its decision, and declares that it does decide them, 
then I say no lawyer can fail, when that case is brought up before the court, to 
say. the court has so decided. 

I do not choose to go into that at any length, nor even to read the syllabus 
of the decision of the Supreme Court. But what were we divided about in 
the year 1854, and what was it that the honorable Senator from Illinois agreed 
to leave to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, upon a case 
to be brought up from the local Legislature of Kansas? It was this: has Con- 
gress the power to govern the Territories of the United States, or is that power 
in the Territorial Legislature? Has Congress the right to exclude slavery from 
the Territories, or can it delegate that right to a Territorial Legislature ; or has 
a Territorial Legislature, in the absence of any delegation of this power by 
Congress, an inherent right to exclude slavery? These are the points. 

When this case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, 



8 

the question of the power of Congress arose directly — no man has ever denied 
that— the power of Congress to declare that a slave should be free by being 
carried into the Territories of the United States north of the Missouri compro- 
mise line. That, then, brought directly in question the power of Congress to 
exclude slavery from the Territories; its power to govern them, and the limit 
upon that power. What did the court say? In referring to a former decision, 
it says : 
" Perhaps the power of governing a Territory belonging to the United States" — 

Observe this language — 
" which has not, BY BECOMING A STATE, acquired the means of self-government"— 

Taking it for granted that every man must at once admit that it is only 
when it becomes a State that it has acquired the power of self-government. 

"Perhaps the power of governing a Territory belonging to the United States, which has net, 
by becoming a State, acquired the means of self-government, may result, necessarily, from the 
facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is within the power and 
jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of 
Ihe right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the source from which the power is derived, 
the possession of it is unquestionable." 

Mr. PUGH. What is that? 

Mr. BENJAMIN. I am reading the citation from Canter's case, found in the 
Dred Scott decision. What did the court, in commenting on that 

Mr. PUGH. I only want to ask the Senator whether, in the Dred Scott de- 
cision, it is not quoted for the purpose of being commented upon? 

Mr. BENJAMIN. I am going on to show, if the Senator will permit me, that 
the court adopted that^n the Dred Scott case. I do not think I leave quite 
such an open joint as that in my argument. The court, in the Died Scott case, 
go on: 

" It is thus clear, from the whole opinion on this point, that the court did not mean to de- 
cide whether the power was derived from the clause in the Constitution, or was the necessary 
eonsequence of the right to acquire. They do decide that the power in Congress is unques- 
tionable, and in this ice entirely concur, and nothing will be found in this opinion to the 
contrary. The power stands firmly on the latter alternative put by the court — that is, as ' the 
inevitable consequence of the right to a&juire territory.' " 

They entirely concurred. Is that decided in the Dred Scott case? 

Mr. PUGH. If the Senator asks me, I think the sentence he emphasized is 
expressly excluded by the language of Judge Taney. He emphasized the first 
paragraph ; and then Judge Taney says the power stands on the last para- 
graph. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Well, I will give you another chance. Let us take 19 
Howard, page 445, referring to that same decision in Canter's case: 

" Thus it will be seen by these quotations from the opinion, that the court, after stating the 
question it was about to decide in a manner too plain to be misunderstood, proceeded to de- 
cide it, and announced, as the opinion of the tribunal, that, in organizing the judicial depart- 
ment of the government in a Territory of the United States, Congress does not act under, and 
U not restricted by, the third article of the Constitution, and is not bound, in a Territory, to 
ordain and establish courts in which the judges hold their offices during good behavior, but 
may exercise the discretionary power which a State exercises in establishing its judicial 
department, and regulating the jurisdiction of its courts, and may authorize the Territorial 
government to establish, or may itself establish, courts in which the judges hold their offices 
lor a term of years only ; and may vest in them judicial power upon subjects confided to the 
judiciary of the United States. And in doing this, Congress undoubtedly exercises the com- 
bined power of the General and a State Government. It exercises the discretionary power 
of a State government in authorizing the establishment of a court in which the judges hold 
their appointments for a term of years only, and not during good behavior ; and it exercises 
the power of the General Government in investing that court with admiralty jurisdiction, over 
which the General Government had exclusive jurisdiction in the Territory. 

"No one, we presume, will question the correctness of that opinion ; nor is there anything 
in conflict with it in the opinion now given." 

How now? 

Mr. PUGH. I do not think that helps you any. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. The Congress of the United States has the discretionary 
power of a State in the Territories. The Congress of the United States has the 
undoubted power to govern the Territories, as they are called. 

Mr. PUGH. The Senator surely knows that the decision does not say that. 
It says Congress has tljat power in the establishment of courts and conferring 
admiralty jurisdiction. That very paragraph in Canter's case was debated in 
the Senate four years ago between the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Trumbull) and 



9 

the Senator from Michigan, General Cass. The court's attention was drawn 
to it. 

Mr. BENMAMIN'. The court's attention was evidont.ly drawn to it, as the 
Senator says; but will the Senator tell me that the Congress of the United 
States has the power to exercise the discretionary power of a Stale in a Terri- 
tory, in organizing its judiciary, without having any power to govern the Ter- 
ritory '( 

Mr. PUGII. So far as the courts of the United States are. concerned, it exer- 
cises the same power within the States; for it provides for settling a controversy 
between two individuals by the action of the Federal Government. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Does the Senator say that the Congress of the United 
States has power to provide for establishing judges in the States for a term of 
years? 

Mr. PLTGH. No, sir; because the Constitution forbids that; but I saj', and 
that is what the court means, that in clothing the territorial courts with admi- 
ralty jurisdiction, first in the establishment of the courts, and next in defining 
their jurisdiction, they exercise powers appertaining both to the Federal and 
State Governments; but as to asserting that Congress had all the powers of a 
State Government in a Territory, it is neither in Canter's case nor in the Dred 
Scott case, nor any other. 

Mr. BENJAMIN'. Assuredly, the Supreme Court of the United States tells 
us exactly where they stop. They say Congress has all the powers of a State 
in a Territory, except where the Constitution of the United States interferes. 
That, perhaps, is also disputed. 

Mr. PUGII. Yes. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Very well; let me read the decision: 
" As we have before said" — 
speaking of this territory belonging to the United States — 

" It was acquired by the General Government, as the representee and trustee of the people 
of the United .States, and it must, therefore, be held in that character for their common and 
equal benefit; for it was the people of the several States, acting through their agent and rep- 
resentative, the Federal Government, who in fact acquired the Territory in question, and the 
Government holds it for their common use until it shall be associated with the other States 
as a member of the Union. 

"But until that time arrives, it is undoubtedly necessary that some government should be 
established, in order to organize society, anil protect the inhabitants in their persons and prop- 
erty ; and as the people of the United States could act in this matter only through the Gov- 
ernment which represented them, and through which they spoke and acted when the Terri- 
tory was obtained, it was not only within the scope of its powers, but it was its duty, to pass 
BUch laws and establish such a government as would enable those by whose authority they 
acted to reap the advantages anticipated from its acquisition, and to gather there a popula- 
tion which would enable it to assume the position to which it was destined among the States 
of the Union. The power to acquire necessarily carries with it the power to preserve and 
apply to the purposes for which it was acquired. The form of government to be established 
necessarily rested in the discretion of Congress. It was their duty to establish the one that 
would be best suited for the protection and security of the citizens of the United States, and 
other inhabitants who might be authorized to take up their abode there, and that must always 
depend upon the existing condition of the Territory, as to the number and character of its 
inhabitants, and their situation in the Territory. In some cases a government, consisting of 
persons appointed by the Federal Government, would best subserve the interests of the Terri- 
tory when the inhabitants were few and scattered and new to one another. In other instances 
it would be more advisable to commit the powers of self-government to the people who had 
settled in the Territory, as being the most competent to determine what was best for their 
own interests. But some form of civil authority would be absolutely necessary to organize 
and preserve civilized society, and prepare it to become a State; and what is the best form 
must always depend on the condition of the Territory at the time, and the choice of the mode 
must depend Upon the exercise of it discretionary power by Congress, acting within the 
scope of its constitutional authority, ami not inj 'ringing upon the rights of' person or the 
rights of property of the citizen, who might go there to reside, or for any oilier lawful pur- 
pose. It teas acquired by the exercise of this discretion, and it must be held and goeerned 
in like manner, until it is fitted to be a State!" 

The Congress has not only the right to govern it, but the right either to govern 
it by delegating persons to hold authority, or by exercising its discretion and 
committing to the people the right of self-government — giving to the people 
the right of self-government ; by the action of Congress, not by inherent sover- 
eignty — a grant to be made by Congress to the people of a Territory, of self- 
government through their Legislature; and yet the honorable Senator from 
Illinois (Mr. Douglas) tells us that although the Supreme Court of the United 
States decided in that case (a decision by which he agreed to abide) that the 

2 



10 

Congress of the United States have the unquestioned power to govern the Ter- 
ritories ; and although the court decided that Congress could govern them in 
any way it pleased in its discretion ; and although the court decided that one 
mode of governing them was for Congress to commit to the inhabitants there a 
power of self-government; when Congress has committed that power, he says 
that the people who got it from Congress have more right than Congress itself; 
and that the Territorial Legislature, which draws its legislative power from a 
grant by Congress, can rise higher than the powers possessed by the grantor; 
or, iu other words, that the stream can rise above its source. 

Mr. PUGH. Does the Senator say that the court meant that Congress makes 
a grant of the power of self-government to the people of a Territory? 
Mr. BENJAMIN. Clearly. 

Mr. PUGH. Where does Congress get the power of self-government? The 
phrase is that Congress has power of self-government over a Territory. It is 
a contradiction in terms. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Who says that? Here is the same idol— evasion. 
Mr. PUGH. If I should "respond to the Senator in equal temper, I should 
call his an evasion. I desire to know where he finds, in the Dred Scott case, 
the proposition. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. The court says that Congress may, without reference \o 
the action of the people of a Territory, govern~it as it pleases in its discretion. 
Then the court says that Congress may, instead of that, give to the people the 
power of self government. 
Mr. PUGH. " Commit." 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Commit to the people the power of self-government. 
What is there absurd in that? 

Mr. PUGH. There is nothing absurd in that; but I was about to say to the 

Senator, if that phrase fits him,"l hope he will give the explanation 

Mr. BENJAMIN. The absurdity, if any, is that of the court, not mine. 
Mr. PUGH. Undoubtedly in the case of Louisiana, which the Senator from 
Georgia cited yesterday, that act was simply preliminary, to get possession of 
the country, and until you have a sufficient community it is all idle to talk 
about self-government; but I understand that paragraph to be that, whenever 
the period arrives that a community is there and Congress recognizes the com- 
munity, Congress has no power of self-government to. grant; it has no such 
power. If there is ary such power it comes from some other place, and I say 
it does not come from Congress. Congress did not have it. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. What is meant by Congress committing the power of self- 
government to the people? 

Mr. PUGH. Acknowledging it. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Commit means to acknowledge? Very well. 
Mr. PUGH. In that sense. I ask the Senator how Congress can commit a 
'power which Congress could not by any possibility have ; for it is an absurdity 
in terms to say that Congress has the power of self-government in the Terri- 
tories? 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Congress has the power of government. 
Mr. PUGH. Then leave the word "self" out. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Exactly, when applied to Congress. Congress has the 
power of government over the Territories; but when Congress commits the 
power to the people to govern themselves that is a power of self-government 
in them. It seems to me so plain that language cannot make it plainer. I 
cannot pursue the discussion on that point with the Senator from Ohio. 

But, sir, the Supreme Court of the United States, in relation to this power 
of Congress and of the Territorial Legislature, has not stopped where I have 
just read. It has gone further, and said : 

" The powers over person and property of which we speak "— 
that is, the power of confiscating the slaves of the citizens of the slaveholding 
States, if they go into the Territories — 

" are not only granted.to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to 
exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the States, but the words are general, 
and extend to the whole territory over which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, in- 
cluding those portions of it remaining under territorial government, as well as that covered 



11 

by States. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of the United Stated, 
and places the citizens of a Territory, bo far as these rights are concerned, on the same footing 
with the citizens of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads 
which the General Government might attempt under the [ilea of implied or incidental powers, 
and if-Gongres itself cannot do this; if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Gov- 
ernment it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a territorial government 
to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local government established by its au- 
thority to violate the provisions of the Constitution." 

Congress cannot destroy the property of a citizen in his slave in a Territory. 
Congress can commit to the people of a Territory the power of government 
— the Senator says "self-government" is absurd — then, let us say the power of 
government; but in so committing it, the court say they presume it will be 
admitted that Congress cannot authorize a territorial government to exercise 
the powers which Congress itself is prohibited from exercising. Again: 

"And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, and 
makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a cit- 
izen, no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United States" — 

And surely the Territorial Legislature, when organized, are acting under our 
authority — 

"no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be legislative, ex- 
ecutive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the 
provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property 
against the encroachments of the Government." 

Now, Mr. President, in that connection, let me thank the honorable Senator 
from Mississippi for bringing the Senator from Illinois to the point the other 
day. We have got him at last where we can understand him. Asain and 
again the distinguished Senator from Mississippi called upon the Senator from 
Illinois to define what he meant by squatter sovereignty. He was asked when 
and how it is that the people of a Territory acquired - the right of self-govern- 
ment. I have here his answer. Well might the Senator from Mississippi say 
that the more this subject was examined and discussed, the further we got apart. 
What was the answer of the Senator from Illinois? It was this. Shall 1 call 
it absurd? No, sir ; senatorial courtesy will not permit it; but I state it in his 
own language almost. 1 will read his words presently. When the people of 
this country first. go into the wilderness and find there no government what- 
ever, and then exercise that inherent right of self-defence which drives men, 
under the laws that God has implanted m them, to associate together in self- 
defence, and organize some system of law for their own protection ; then, when 
it would seem to the common sense of universal mankind that no one could say 
they were wrong in doing that — then it is that the Senator from Illinois says 
he repudiates and opposes their power. That is the squatter sovereignty that 
he objects to. But when the sovereign has come in; when the trustee of all 
the States has taken possession of the common fund ; when it has organized a 
government that suits it in the exercise of its discretion ; and when it has com- 
mitted the administration of the affairs of the Territory, with certain limitations 
under the Constitution of the United States, to a Territorial Legislature — then, 
when the sovereign is present, then the people become invested, by some riiagi- 
cal process, with an inherent popular sovereignty that rises superior to the au- 
thor of their being. That is the position of the Senator from Illinois. 

In answer to the Senator from Mississippi, he said : 

"Regarding squatter sovereignty as a nick-name invented by the Senator and those with 
whom he acts, which I have never recognized, 1 must leave him to define the meaning of his 
own term. I have denounced squatter sovereignty where you find it setting up a government 
in violation of law, as you do now at Pike's Peak. 1 denounced it this year. Where you find 
an unauthorized legislature, in violation of law, setting up a government without the sanction 
of Congress or the Constitution — that is squatter sovereignty which 1 oppose. There is the 
case in Dacota* where you hare left a whole people nit/tout any lav ,,/■ territorial organi- 
zation, with no mode of appeal 'from their squatter courts to the United States courts t<> 
correct their decisions. That is squatter sovereignty in violation of tin- Constitution ami 
/airs of the United States. There is a similar government set up over a part of the State of 
California, and a part of the Territory of Utah, called Nevada. It litis had a delegate here 
claiming that he represented it I have denounced that as unlawful. If that is what the Sen- 
ator referred to, I am against it. All I say is, tiiat the people of a Territory, when they have 
been organized under the Constitution and laws, have legislative power over all rightful sub- 
jects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United States." 

Now, the Supreme Court of the United States says that no tribunal, legisla- 
tive, executive, or judicial, acting under the authority of the United States, can 



12 

interfere with the right of a southern citizen to his property in the Territories. 
The honorable Senator from Illinois says they cannot do it until the} - are or- 
ganized under the authority of tlie United States. Which is light? He says 
the people of a Territory do not get the power until they are organized under 
the authority of the General Government. The Supreme Court of the United 
States says no earthly tribunal organized under the authority of the United 
States can exercise that power. 

Now, Mr. President, I cannot go any further into the discussion of this ease, 
because, in view of my ulterior purposes in this argument, it is u hn'ecessary. 
No sooner had that decision been made than it was attacked all over the land. 
It was attacked by the Republican party. The honorable Senator from New 
Hampshire (Mr. Hale) was not satisfied with attacking the principles of the 
decision. The Chief Justice, in order to come at the point to which he was 
directing his attention, declared that lie could only reach the point by taking 
into consideration the history of the African race on this continent, and looking 
back, in a historical point of view, to the date of the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion ; and he proceeded to give that history. He stated that at that date cer- 
tain principles were prevalent in the country, and amongst them, that these 
unfortunate people were considered by many as having no rights which a white 
man was bo'und to respect. The honorable Senator from New Hampshire re- 
peated here the other day the statement that this assertion of a historical fact 
was one of the points maided by the court, in defiance, i suppose, of one 
thousand corrections of the statement that had been made all over the United 
States. 

Again : the honorable Senator from New York, (Mr. Seward,) who is not now 
in his seat, and whose claims upon the gratitude and confidence of his party 
were so ruthlessly set aside at Chicago, undertook to get. rid of the decision by 
denouncing the court; and Senators around me will remember how, again and 
again, he stood up here in the Senate and insinuated, in the face of the country, 
that there had been a bargain between the Chief Justice and the President of 
the United States. He saw what the decision was, he did not attempt to 
evade or avoid it. He tried to get rid of its moral power by blackening the 
character of its author. What says the honorable Senator from Illinois? He 
does not do that. He now says that his bargain was that he would abide by 
the decision of the court when it came up from a local court in a Territory. 
He is not satistied with the decision, although given by the tribunal to which 
we all agreed to refer it. He says he did not agree to refer it in I he D nd Scott 
case; he agreed to refer it when a case should arise in a territory. Here is his 
language: 

" Bear in mind that the report introducing the bill was, that these questions touching the 
right of property in slaves were referred to the local courts, to the territorial courts, with a 
right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. When that case shall arise, and 
the court shall pronounce its judgment, it will be binding on me, on you, sir, and on every 
good citizen. 

Mi*. President, I am not satisfied with that promise; and I am not satisfied 
with it because the honorable Senator from Illinois, upon several memorable 
occasions since the year 1S57, has said out of the presence of the Senate that, if 
the decision was made, it would not bind the people of the Territory; that the 
case could not be so decided as to bind the Territory; that nothing that the 
Supreme Court could do by deci-iou could bind the Territory ; but, by the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, he had fixed the South so that the people of the Terri- 
tory, in defiance of the decisions of the court, could exclude slavery from the 
Territory. 

Here, Mr. President, let me come back to an explanation of that fact which 
I spoke of before, and to which I asked the attention of the Senate and the 
country. Here stands the explanation of the sudden change that has been 
wrought in the relations of the Senator from Illinois with the rest of the Dem- 
ocratic party. It was when, in the year 185S, the year following this decision, 
pressed by a canvass at home, eager to return to the Senate, he joined in can- 
vassing the State of Illinois with the gentleman who is now the candidate of 
the Black Republican party for the Presidency. Pressed in different portions 
of the State with this very argument, that he had agreed to leave the question to 



the court, that, (he court, had decided it in favor of the South, and that, there- 
fore, under the- Kansas-Nebraska hill, slavery was fixed in all the Territories of 
the United States ; finding himself going down in Illinois in that canvass, he 
backed out from his promise, and directly told the people of his State that, 
whether it had been deeided'or not, and no matter what the court might decide, 
the Kansas^Nebraska bill had fixed the power in the people of the North to 
make every Territory in the Union free. 

In that Contest the two candidates for the Senate of the United States, in the 
State of Illinois, went before their people. They agreed to discuss the issues; 
they put questions to each other for answer; and 1 must say here, for 1 must 
be just to all, that I have been surprised in the examination that I made again 
within the last few da^s of this discussion between Mr, Lincoln and Mr. Dob's- 
las, to find that on several points Mr. Lincoln is a far more conservative man, 
unless he has since changed his opinions, than 1 had supposed him to be. 
There was no doging on his part. Mr. Douglas started with his questions. 
Here they are, with Mr. Lincoln's answers: 

" Question 1. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in ls">4, in favor of 
the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law? 

'• Answer. 1 do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fu- 
gitive slave law. 

"Question, i. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 
1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want 
them ? 

" Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more 
slave States into the Union. 

" Question 8. 1 want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new 
State into the Union with such a constitution as tiie people of that Suae may see tit to make. 

' Answer, i do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with 
such a constitution as the people of that State may see tit to make. 

" Question 4 1 want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery 
in the .District of Columbia'/ 

'■ Answer. 1 do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. 

" Question 5. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the 
slave trade between the different States? 

"Answer, i do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the differ- 
ent States. 

" Question 6. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Ter- 
ritories of the United Stales, north as well as south of the Missouri compromise line? 

" Answer, i am impliedly, if not expressed!*') pledged to a belief in the rig/it and duty of 
Congress to prohibit slavery in ail the United states Territories. 

" Question T. 1 desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new 
territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein? 

" Answer I am not generally opposed to honest acquisitions of territory ; and, in any given 
case, 1 would or would not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acqui- 
sition would or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves."— Debates of Lin- 
coln and Douglax, p. 88. 

It is impossible, Mr. President, however we may differ in opinion with the 
man, not to admire the perfect candor and frankness with which these answers 
were given: no eqtiivoet^tion — no evasion.- The Senator from Illinois had his 
questions put to him in his turn. All 1 propose to do now is to read his unswer 
to the second question: 

"The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can the people of a Territor}', in 
any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from 
their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution? I answer emphatically, as Mr. 
Lincoln has heard me answer a Hundred times from ever) stump in Illinois, that, in my opin- 
ion, the people id' a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to 
the formation of a State constitution. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that question 
over and over again. He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the 
State in b64, in 1N<5, and in lboO, and lie has no excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my 
position on that question." 

All that was true; but see the art; the decision had not come yet;. now the 
decision has come; now what? 

" IT MATTERS NOT WHAT WAY TIIE SUPREME COURT MAY HEREAFTER DE- 
CIDE AS 'lO THE ABSTUACT QUESTION, W I1LTH KK SLAVERY MAY OR -MAY 
NOT GO INTO A TERRITORY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, THE PEOPLE HAVE 
THE LAWFUL MEANS TO INTRODUCE OR EXCLUDE IT AS THEY PLEASE, for 
the reason that slaver) cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local 
police regulations. 'I hose police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature; 
and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body v. ho n dl, 
by unfriendly legislation, effectual!) prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the 
contrary, they are for it, their legislation will luvor its intension. Hwuce, NO MATTER 



14 

WHAT THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT MAT RE ON THAT ARSTRACT 
QUESTION, STILL THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO MAKE A. SLAVIC TERRITORY 
OR A FREE TERRITORY 16 PERFECT AND COMPLETE UNDER THE NEBRASKA 
RILL. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory on that point." 

He told us, a few days ago, that he had agreed that that very question 
should be submitted to and decided b} - the court. He held out to us here, 
when we altogether advocated and supported the Kansas-Nebraska bill, that 
we were submitting a judicial question to the courts, and that when that ques- 
tion was decided, the Democratic party should be a unit on the question thus 
decided ; but when he goes home, and is pressed in a local contest, and he sees 
the glittering prize of a seat in this Chamber slipping from his grasp he turns 
his back upon his promise; he repudiates his words; he tells his people, as he 
sags he has told them a hundred times before, thai, even if the court decides 
against them, he has, in the Kansas-Nebraska act, obtained for the free States 
a perfect right to make a free Territory of every Territory in the Union, not- 
withstanding the decision of the court; and yet the honorable Senator stands 
up here and arraigns his Democratic brethren; accuses them of breach of faith; 
talks to them of turning him out of the party; and triumphantly appeals to 
the records of 1840 to show his consistency. Now, we tell him that we will 
not stand upon such promises any more. Once deceived a wise man may be ; 
twice deceived, by the same person and the same means, he is a dupe and a 
fool. He tells us now again, "leave it to the courts," so that he may again go 
home, and addressing his people, say to them : "Fellow-citizens of Illinois, I 
have goi the South for you. 1 have got them so that, no matter what the de- 
cision is, you can have a free Territory, and keep their slaves out always." 

Well, Mr, what occurred further in that controversy? His competitor was 
shocked at the profligacy of the Senator. His competitor said to him — and 
here is the argument — "everybody knows that the Dred Scott decision has de- 
termined the principle that a citizen of the South has a right to go into the 
Territory, and there, under the Constitution, his property is protected, and yet 
you are telling the people here that their legislators, when they swear to sup- 
port the Constitution, can violate that constitutional provision." Mr. Lincoln 
held up his hands in horror at the proposition. He was bold in the assertion 
of his own principles; but he told the Senator from Illinois in that discussion 
that what he was saying was a gross outrage on propriety, and was breaking 
the bargain he had made. But again, sir, he told the Senator from Illinois that 
he did not believe in the Dred Scott decision, because, said he, if the Dred Scott 
decision be true, and slavery extends in the Territories under the Constitution 
of the United States, then it also exists in the States — it exists in Pennsylvania 
as well as in Kansas. 

The contest ended. On the popular vote the Senator from Illinois was beaten ; 
but according to the division of the representative and senatorial districts of 
the State, he was re-elected. The popular vote upon the election of members 
of the Senate and Legislature was one hundred and twenty-one thousand in 
his favor, one hundred and twenty-five thousand in favor of the Republican 
candidate, and five thousand votes in favor of what he called the Danities. All 
the State Republican officers were elected ; but there was a majority of the 
Legislature of Illinois elected in favor of the Senator from Illinois, and he came 
back here in triumph. 

Last spring I was forced to leave my country from an attack of a disease in 
the eyes, which required attention abroad. I went to get the attention of emi- 
nent oculists abroad. For six or eight months I was debarred from reading or 
writing. I came back just before the opening of this Congress; and I found 
that during my absence the honorable Senator from Illinois had been engaged 
in a controversy in the public journals and magazines of the country in relation 
to the principles that governed the Territories of the United States, and that 
he had copied in those articles the very arguments that his Republican opponent 
in Illinois had used against him, and was then using against the Democratic 
party. (Laughter.) 1 have got them here. First, that it may not be said that 
I originated this charge, after these magazine articles were printed, and after 
the Senator's opponent, Mr. Lincoln, had taxed him with want of good faith 
under the Constitution for alleging the power of the local Legislature to adopt 



15 

this unfriendly legislation, in a subsequent speech, delivered at Columbus, Ohio, 
in September," 1859, Mr. Lincoln said to the people: 

"Judge Douglas Bays, if the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, beyond the 
power n't' the people of the Territories to control it as other properly, then it follows logically 
that everv one who swears to support the Constitution of the United States must gi\c that 
support to that property which it needs. And if the Constitution carries slavery into the Ter- 
ritories beyond the power of the people to control it as other property, then it also carries it 
it were not for my excessive modesty 1 would say that I told that very thing to Judge Doug- 
into the States, because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, If 
las quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and if it were not for my modi sty, 
as fsdid, I might call your attention to if. ffyou mill read it,you will find that J not 
only made that argumt tit hut made it better than he has since." 

(Laughter.) 

Now, let us look at Judge Douglas's argument on this subject in Harper's 
Magazine. The Senator from Illinois, after thus deliberately violating the agree- 
ment that he made with his brother Democrats; after flying from the result of 
the decision which he himself had provoked and proposed ; after declaring that 
no matter how many decisions might be made, he could always get clear of 
them, because he had so fixed it in the Nebraska bill that the people of the Ter- 
ritory could always, in spite of the decisions, make, free Territories, then pro- 
ceeded, in his canvass for the Presidency, to address himself to the people of 
the United States through a magazine; and the next trick — I am not speaking 
of it in the sense of dishonor or dishonesty — the next fantastic trick of the 
Senator, was to dress up a magazine article with the answers of his republican 
opponent in Illinois brought forward as discoveries by himself, and claimed as 
discoveries by himself, as I shall show; and he put forth to the astonished gaze 
of the American republic his new theory, that the word "States," when em- 
ployed in the Constitution of the United States, often means "Territories." 
Let us first look at this new con-titutional discovery. In order that I may do 
the Senator ho injustice I will read what, I am sure, on its being read, if 1 had 
not the book in my hand, would be supposed to be a caricature of the opinions 
of a public man. In speaking of the clause about the surrender of fugitives 
slaves, he says : 

"It will be observed that the term 'State' is used in this provision, as well as in various 
other parts of the Constitution, in the same sense in which it was used by Mr. Jefferson, in his 
plan for establishing governments for the new States in the territory ceded, and to be ceded, 
to the United States, and by Mr. Madison, in his proposition to confer mi Congress power 'to 
institute temporary governments for the mew states arising in the unappropriated lands of 
the United States ' to designate the political communities, Territories as well as States, within 
the dominion of the United States." 

Here it is, and he goes on to prove it, as he says ; and the proof is so amus- 
ing that I will relieve this rather tedious discussion by reading it for the amuse- 
ment of the Senate : 

"The word 'States' is used in the same sense in the ordinance of the 13th of July, 17S7, for 
the government of the Territory northwest of the river Ohio, which was passed by the rem- 
nant of the Congress of the Confederation, sitting in New York, while its most eminent mem- 
bers were at Philadelphia, as delegates to the federal convention, aiding in the formation of 
the Constitution of the United States. 

'■ In this sense the word 'States' is used in the clause providing for the rendition of fugitive 
slaves, applicable to all political communities under the authority of the United States, in- 
eluding the Territories as well as the several States of the Union. Under any other construc- 
tion, the right of the owner to recover his slave would be restricted to the States of the Union 
leaving the Territories a secure place of refuge for all fugitives. The same remark is appli- 
cable to the clause of the Constitution which provides that 'a person charged in any State 
with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another Stated 
shall, on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered 
up to be removed to the State ha\ ing jurisdiction of the crime.' Unless the term State, as 
used in these provisions of the Constitution, shall be construed to include every distinct poli- 
tical community under the jurisdiction of the United States, and to apply to Territories as 
well as to the s'tates of the Union, the Territories must become a sanctuary for all the fugi- 
tives from service and justice, for all the felons and criminals who shall escape from the sev- 
eral States, and seek refuge and immunity in the Territories. 

" If any other illustration were necessary to show that the political communities which we 
now call Territories (but which, during the whole period of the Confederation and the forma- 
tion of the Constitution, were always" 'referred io as 'States' or 'new States') are recognized 
as ' Slates' in some of the provisions of the Constitution, they may be found in those clauses 
which declare that 'no^Tdfe' shall enter into any ' treaty, alliance, or conlederation ; grant 
letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit ; make anything but gold and 
sil\er coin a tender in payment of debt.-; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facta law, or law 
impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.' 



16 

" It must be borne in mind that in each of those cases where the power is not expressly del- 
egated t" Congress, the prohibition is not imposed upon the Federal Government, but upon 
the States. There was no necessity tor any such prohibition upon Congress or the Federal 
Government, for the reason that the omission to delegate any such powers -in the Constitution 
was of itself a prohibition, and so declared in express terms by the tenth amendment, wnieh 
declares that ' tiie powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohib- 
ited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people'. 9 

" Hence it would certainly be competent for the States and Territories to exercise 
these powers hut for the prohibition contained in those pr iv'isions of the constitu- 
tion ; and inasmuch as the prohibition only extends to the ' states,' tiie people of the 
'Territories' are still at liberty to erercise them, unless the Territories, are in- 
cluded WITHIN THE TERM ' STATES,' WITHIN THE MEANING OK THESE PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTI- 
TUTION of the United States I '. " 

[The small capitals and notes of intense admiration are mine.] 
That is a constitutional argument elaborately propounded to what the hon- 
orable Senator from Georgia yesterday said was the nonsense of the country. 
Mr. President, is it not observable, does not everybody see, that the Senator 
from Illinois was driven into just that nonsense when he assumed the power of 
the people of a Territory to exercise what he terms squatter o; popular sover- 
eignty? If they be, indeed, sovereigns, he is right; there is no prohibition on 
them in the Constitution of the United States, for the prohibitions are upon 
States alone, and not, upon territorial governments. If, therefore, they be pop- 
ular sovereigns, he does not get rid of his difficulty by saying that when the 
Constitution talks about States it means Territories, because that is not so; but 
he brings himself just to that reductio ad absurdn.ui which, with his peculiar 
perspicacity, he saw straight before him: if the Territory is sovereign, as there 
is no restriction upon that sovereignty in the Constitution, because the Consti- 
tution restricts only the sovereignty of the States and the Federal Government, 
necessarily the people of a Territory have a right to raise armies, to wage war, 
to emit bills of credit, to exercise all those powers that the Constitution of the 
United States prohibits the States from exercising. Jn order to get rid of this 
direct additional absurdity into which he was plunged, he saw uo other reined}' 
than to appeal to the nonsense of the public with a statement that t e Consti- 
tution of the United States meant "Territories" when it said ''States." 

But, sir, I have said that the honorable Senator from Illinois had in this 
magazine taken the argument used by his Republican opponent in the sena- 
torial canvass in Illinois and put them before the people of the cou try as argu- 
ments against his Democratic associates who differed with him in opinion. 1 
have read to you what Mr. Liucoln said on that subject in his speech in Sep- 
tember, 1859. Here is what Mr. Lincoln said in the speech delivered by him 
in reply to Mr. Douglas, at Jonesboro', on the 15th of September, 1858: 

"To this Judge Douglas answered, that they (the people of a Territory) can lawfully ex- 
clu le slavery from the Territory prior to the formation of a constitution. He goes on to tell 
us how it can be done. As I understand him, he holds that it can be done by the Territorial 
Legislature refusing to make any enactments for the protection of slavery in the Territory, 
and especially by adopting unfriendly legislation to it. For the; sake of clearness 1 will state 
ii again; that they can exclude slavery from the Territory, first, by withholding what he as- 
sumes to be an indispensable assistance to it in the way of legislation; and, secondly, by 
unfriendly legislation. If I rightly understand him, I wish to ask your attention for a while 
to his position. 

'•In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that any congres- 
sional prohibition of slavery in the Territories is unconstitutional — that they have reached this 
proposition as a conclusion from their former proposition, that the Constitution of the United 
States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and from that other constitutional provision, 
that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law." 

Pretty straightforward propositions, one would suppose. 

"Hence they reach the conclusion that, as the Constitution of the United States expressly 
recognizes property in slaves, and prohibits any person from being deprived of property with- 
out due process of law, to pass an act of Congress by which a man who owned a slave on one 
side of a line would be deprived of him if lie took him on the other side, is depriving him 
of that property without due process of law. That I understand to be the decision of the Su- 
preme Court. I understand also that Judge Douglas adheres most tirmly to that decision; 
and the difficulty is, how is it possible for any power to exclude slavery from the Territory un- 
less in violation of that decision? That is the difficulty. 

" In the Senate of the United States, in IS06. dit'isce Trumbull, in a speech, substantially, if 
not directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge Douglas, as to whether the people of a Ter- 
ritory had the lawful power to exclude slavery prior to the formation of a constitution. Judge 
Douglas then answered at considerable length, and his answer will be fouud m the Congres- 
sional Globe under the date of June t), 1336." 



t 



17 

I have not that answer, but I have his answer of the 2d of July, 1856, which 
the Senator from Georgia read yesterday, in which he says: 
" My answer then was, and now is" — 
Here is his senatorial answer in Congress here: 

"My answer then was, and now is, that if the Constitution carries slavery there, let it go, 
and no power on earth can take it away; but if the Constitution does not carry it there, no 
power but the people can carry it there." 

Not just what he said in Illinois. Mr. Linceln proceeds: 

"The Judge said that whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation of a 
constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court. lie put that propo- 
sition, as will be seen by the Congressional Globe, in a variety of forms, all running to the 
same thing in substance— that it was a question for the Supreme Court. I maintain that when 
he says, after the Supreme Court have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude 
slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say that it is not a question for the Supreme 
Court lie shifts his ground. I appeal to you whether he did not say it was a question for the 
Supreme Court. Has not the Supreme Court decided that question? When he now says the 
people may exclude slavery, does he not make it a question for the people? Does he not vir- 
tually shift his ground, and"say that it is not a question for the court, but for the people? This 
is a very simple proposition— a very plain and naked one." ****** 

"Again: I will ask you my friends, if you were elected members of the Legislature what 
would be the first thing you would have to do before entering upon your duties? Swear to 
support the Constitution of the Un ited States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, 
that the Constitution of the United States guaranties to your neighbor the right to hold slaves 
in that Territorv— that they are his property— how can you clear your oaths unless you give 
him such legislation as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that properly? What do you un- 
derstand bv supporting the constitution of a State or of the United States? Is it not to give 
such constitutional helps to the rights established by that constitution as may be practically 
needed? Can you, if you swear to support the Constitution, and believe that the Constitution 
establishes a right, clear vour oath without giving it support? Do you support the Constitu- 
tion if, knowing or believing there is a right established under it which needs specific legisla- 
tion, you withhold that legislation? Do you not violate and disregard your oath? I can con- 
ceive of nothing plainer in the world. There can be nothing in the words ' support the Con- 
stitution' if you may run counter to it by refusing support to any right established under the 
Constitution. And what I say here will hold with still more force against the Judge's doctrine 
ef 'unfriendly legislation.' How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution, and 
believing it guarantied the right to bnld slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended 
to defeat that right? That would be violating your own view of the Constitution. Not only 
so, but if you were to do so, how long would it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitu- 
tional and void? Not a moment. 

"Lastly, I would ask, is not Congress itself under obligation to give legislative support to 
any right that is established in the United States Constitution? I repeat the question, is not 
Congress itself bound to give legislative support to any right that is established in the United 
States Constitution ? A member of Congress swears to support the Constitution of the United 
States; and if he sees a right established bv that Constitution which needs specific legislative 
protection, can he clear his oath without giving that protection ? Let me ask you why many 
of us who are opposed to slavery upon principle, give our acquiescence to a fugitive slave law? 
Why do we hold ourselves under obligation to pass such a law, and abide it when it is passed ? 
Because the Constitution makes provision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to re- 
claim them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves, and that is, as Judge Douglas says, a barren 
right, unless there is legislation that will enforce it." 

Now, sir, let it not he said that I am reading Republican doctrines here, be- 
cause these very passages from the speeches of Mr. Lincoln were introduced as 
discoveries by the Senator from Illinois— these and the other passages in rela- 
tion to the confusion between a State and a Territory. When the Attorney 
General had replied to the magazine article of the Senator from Illinois, a re- 
joinder was issued, called " the rejoinder of Judge Douglas to Judge Black," in 
which he says, speaking of the magazine article: 

" In that article, without assailing any one"— 
He never assails any one — 

" In that article, without assailing any one, or inpugning any man's motives, I demonstrated 
beyond the possibility of cavil or dispute by any fair-minded man, that if the proposition were 
true, as contended by Mr. Buchanan, that slavery exists in the Territories by virtue of the 
Constitution, the conclusion is inevitable and irresistible, that it is the imperative duty of 
Congress to pass all laws necessarv for its protection ; that there is and can be no exception 
to the rule that a right guarantied by the Constitution must be protected by law in all cases 
where legislation is essential to its enjoyment ; that all who conscientiously believe that sla- 
very exists in the Territories" — 

Senators, listen to me now. The Senator from Illinois stood here last week, 
hour after hour, and asked what was this new issue which we were trying to 
force on the party, and whence its necessity. Why not stand, said he, on the 



18 

platform of 1856; why not take that Cincinnati platform which we agreed to 
iu 1850 ? Who is it, he says, that is forcing these new issues on the party ? I 
have tracked him through Illinois. What did he say in his defence of the Har- 
per's Magazine article about the necessity of putting this very resolution in the 
platform? He says he has demonstrated — 

" That all who conscientiously believe that slavery exists in the Territories by virtue of the 
Constitution are bound by their conscience* and their oaths of fidelity to the Constitution to 
support a congressional slave code for the Territories." 

I deny that; but I want to show his view of what. our duty is: 

" And that no consideration of political expediency can relieve, an honest man, who so be- 
lieves, from tlui faithful and prompt performance of this imperative duty." 

That is Judge Douglas's view of our position ; and yet, hour after hour, he 
stands up here and attacks us for doing that which he says our oaths and our 
consciences impose upon us, as a duty so imperative that it is impossible for us, 
as honest men, to avoid doing it. He says further, in the same "rejoinder:" 

" I also demonstrated, in the same paper, that the Constitution, being uniform throughout 
the United States, is the same in the States as in the Territories — is the same in Pennsylvania 
as in Kansas ; and, consequently, if slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of 
the United States, it must of necessity exist in Pennsylvania by virtue of the same instru- 
ment ; and if it be the duty of the Federal Government to force the people of the Territory 
to sustain the institution of slavery, whether they want it or not, merely because it exists there 
by virtue of the Constitution, it becomes the duty of the Federal Government to do the same 
thing in all the States for the same reason. 

" This exposition of the question produced consternation and dismay in the camp of my 
assailants." 

He just copied the arguments from Mr. Lincoln's dispute with him, put them 
into the Harper's Magazine article, and tells us that this exposition of his of 
the constitutional rights and duties of the States of this Union produced con- 
sternation and dismay amongst his assailauts! Why, Mr. President, what is 
there in this argument which the honorable Senator from Illinois has copied 
from those Republicans who again and again have attacked the decisions of the 
Supreme Court of the United States — that uuut-r the doctrine of the Dred Scott 
decision slavery exists as well in the States as in the Territories; a sophism so 
bald, a proposition so destitute of a shadow of foundation, that it never was 
used by any man who believed it, but was put forth to deceive those who could 
not understand the question. 

What is the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States? It is this, 
plainly and simply : Congress has jurisdiction over and power to govern the 
Territories; the powers of Congress under the Constitution are limited; amongst 
the limitations is a prohibition to destroy and impair or confiscate the property 
of citizens without due process of law. Slaves are property, and therefore 
Congress has no power to confiscate them, to destroy them, or to impair the 
right of property in them, without due process of law. That is what the Su- 
preme Court says. What has that to do with a State? Does Congress legis- 
late for a State? Does Congress govern a State? Is there anything in the Con- 
stitution of the United States prohibiting a State from doing as it pleases in its 
own legislation, except a certain clause in which the prohibitions are plainly 
stated, and which does not include the slavery question at all. There are cer- 
tain prohibitions on the States in the Constitution, and amongst them are emit- 
ting bills of credit, raising armies and navies, levying taxes or duties on imports, 
on exports — all these are prohibited to the States. The States are not prohib- 
ited from legislating on slavery in their own limits; but the Supreme Court of 
the United States hold that Congress is prohibited by the Constitution from 
doing so in the Territories, and yet the Senator from Illinois repeats this absurd 
position, that because Congress cannot destroy property in slaves in a Territory 
therefor^ State constitutions cannot destroy it in the States! 

It was, Mr. President, well known to the Senator from Illinois when he 
penned this article, that there was nothing in it whatever. He was driven to 
it. Every time he discusses the question, if he holds to the principles he has 
promulgated in the Senate, and now adheres to before the nation, he will be 
driven step by step, back and back, to the Black Republican camp. Let him 
beware. Let him beware of the first step outside of the intrenchments of the 



19 

"ffil fi^ESS^S SSToi (k. Senate rather |_. than! in- 

evaded, avoided, WA^^^EL^J! ~£ a it , and confers on the people of 
it be susceptible of the construction be % ive, , promise8j the cloven 

the Territories the right he now allege, but v,^ h < ill h -M ^ ^ 

foot again sticks out. He warns ^^^ff^JJ^ away that, too. 

make it! Tas. ,t, and he te Is y «, >t j. not h. 'everybody 

here it is. 

property in the Tem^es and ^^£« ri*t?3 person or property can be 
5BWS3S^ «!tfEU or territorial legislation." 

it. That is the Tennessee resolution. What is tne warmu D gi j 

Senator from Illinois. Here it is: 

? LSSk I hav^got J glimpse. He says it is liable to two constructs- 

« And certainly and inevitably will receive two, directly the opposite to each other, and each 
will be maintained with equal pertinacity. 

persistently maintained. And what is it? He says: 

« The resolution contains, in my opinion, two truisms; and fairly considered.no man can 
question them." 

What is the fair consideration he gives it? 
" They are, first, that every citizen "— 

Not "all the citizens." The resolution says all the citizens. He says every 
citizen. But I will show you why he says so : 

"Every citizen of the United States has an equal right in the i^rrUoriea ; W whatever 
righUh^citizen of one State has may be enjoyed by the citizens of all the States. 

See how he is changing it now 1 ■ •' : , ' 

"That whatever property the citizen of one State may carry there, the citizens of all the 
States may carry." 



20 

And then they will go on with the old Republican objection, that we are all 
at perfect liberty to go into the Territories without our property ; that we are all 
on an equal footing. The old Republican argument that was brought up here 
in the discussions on the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854, the Senator from Illinois 
tenders to us now for the canvass of 1860. He will tell us, " You are not exclud- 
ed from the Territory; a northern man goes with his horses, you may go with 
horses; a northern man goes with a cow, you may go with a cow ; a northern 
man does not go with a slave, and you shall not go with a slave;" and that is 
the equality that he says it means. The Senator from Illinois is kind in warn- 
ing us in advance this time how this proposition will be got rid of. The South 
will be fools if they do not take advantage of the warning, and see if some- 
thing cannot be devised which the astute and practiced ingenuity of the Sena- 
tor from Illinois cannot get around, if the English language can hold him. Now 
he says: 

" And on whatever terms the citizens of one State can hold it, and have it protected, the 
citizens of all States can hold it and have it protected, without deciding what the right is 
which still remains for decision." 

So that the Tennessee platform will leave us just where we are now. What 
is his objection to it? 

" I want no double dealing, or double construction." 

That is his objection. He wants things clear, plain, and straight; and then 
when we ask that they shall be put down clear, plain, and straight, he abuses 
us for making new tests in the party; talks about assaults on him; kept the 
Senate occupied for eight mortal hours, whilst he was attacking every man aud 
every State in the entire Union that would not support his pretensions for the 
Presidency. 

Now, Mr. President, the people have at last come to this point; the Demo- 
cratic delegates of the South have come to this point. I speak not of the dele- 
gates in either House of Congress. It is the fashion to speak of congressional 
dictation, in a certain class of public journals under the control of certain pub- 
lic men, and yet one would suppose that a seat in Congress affords at least some 
prima facie probability of the possession of the confidence of the constituency, 
and that the unanimous concurrence of opinion of the chosen representatives 
of the Democracy, both of States and constituencies, is some prima facie proof 
of what Democratic principles are. But all that is nothing. In modern slang, 
this is a Yancey and caucus platform, and we are congressional dictators. I, 
therefore, leaving out of view the opinions of members of Congress in both 
branches of the General Assembly of the United States, now say that it has 
been demonstrated by the delegates of the South, sent by the State conven- 
tions from primary meetings, that the time has come when all constitutional 
rights guarantied to us under the decision of the Supreme Court — which was 
taken by the Senator from Illinois and his coadjutors as the common arbiter of 
our dispute — shall be acknowledged; that all that we demand shall be put 
down in the bond; that there shall be no longer a doubt in relation to it 

Mr. President, when mere private rights of property are concerned, when the 
question is, who owns a farm, or who owns a horse, or who is entitled to $100, 
it is an old aphorism of the law, misera est servitus, ubi jus aut vagum aid incer- 
turn est — wretched and deplorable is the slavery where the law which governs 
a man's right is vague or uncertain. And shall we, we who represent Demo- 
cratic States and Democratic constituencies, be asked why it is that we will not 
leave these rights, on which they rest for their property, which are even vital 
to their existence, open to doubt and denial? Shall we be asked why it is that 
we demand that the charter of these rights be written clearly, plainly, beyond 
the possibility of doubt or misconstruction ? Oh, no, says the Senator from 
Illinois, "in 1*856 we were unanimous upon the Cincinnati platform; I have 
given it a construction, and the Charleston convention has backed my con- 
struction, and I am the Democratic party ; " and it is his construction, and the 
construction adopted by a minority at Charleston, that he presents to us here, 
and asks us by what right we call for something plainer or clearer as the charter 
of our constitutional privileges ? Miserable and deplorable is the slavery where 
the law governing the property of the individual is doubtful or uncertain. De- 



21 

grading and dishonoring to a State is it when its sovereignty cannot ask for an 
expression or acknowledgment of its sovereign rights in an assembly of equals. 
The people of the South do not mean to be put off this time with any doubtful 
or vague construction. The Senator from Illinois is opposed to double mean- 
ings and double constructions; he dislikes the Tennessee platform on that, 
ground. We share his dislike; fas est ab hoste doceri — we will be taught by 
him. We will ask that everything in our platform be put down plainly and 
clearly. 

Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Illinois, in the plentitude of hia 
power, tells us that the Democratic platform has been adopted, and backs him. 
He next tells us that it is glory enough for mm to have been supported by a 
majority of the delegates of the Democratic party at a convention ; and then 
with an allusion, somewhat transparent, to a course of proceeding by others 
which would be agreeable to him, he says that when others got a majority he 
sent word to his friends to vote for them. He does not say that he thinks 
everybody ought to send word to vote for him, but he leaves it to us, if we are 
generous or liberal, to draw our own conclusions. Now, Mr. President, I know 
what happened at that convention only from the public records of the country, 
and the report of its delegates. It is reported that, as his highest vote, upon 
one or two ballots, the honorable Senator from Illinois received one hundred 
and fifty-two and a half votes, and I think that was the highest. 

Mr. PUGH. For several ballots — seven or eight. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. How did he get them ? Were there one hundred and 
fifty-two delegates in' the convention of whom he was the choice? 

Mr. PUGH. Certainly ; they expressed it by their vote. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Oh, that was part of the arrangement by which those who 
were not candidates for the Presidency were caught, but the truth of history 
will leak out in despite of those little arrangements. (Laughter.) I had here 
amongst my papers, I think, the speech of a delegate, who explains this majority. 

Mr. PUGH. State the substance of it. If it was said at Charleston I shall 
recollect it. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Well, sir, I will state the substance of it; I cannot find 
the extract I had, and I shall have to affix it to my speech. Gentlemen have 
doubtless seen it. Scarcely had the Charleston convention met, and a commit- 
tee been appointed on organization, when it reported an organization of presi- 
dents, vice presidents, and secretaries, and sprung this resolution on the con- 
vention instanler — the convention had previously adopted the rules of the pre- 
vious Democratic conventions — 

" The committee further recommend" — 

The subject was not committed to them at all — 

"The committee further recommend that the rules and regulations adopted by the Demo- 
cratic conventions of 1652 and 1850 be adopted by this convention for its government; with 
this additional rule : 

"That any State which has not provided or directed by its State convention how its votes 
may be given, the convention will recognize the right of each delegate to east his individual 
vote." 

As a certain gentleman was a candidate for the Presidency — Heaven preserve 
the country from candidates for the Presidency ! — wherever the gentleman's 
friends were in the majority, they had taken special pains, bv preorganization, 
to get a resolution passed at the State conventions instructing the delegates to 
vote as a unit, and thus they fastened down every man in a minority in the 
United States, and in spite of himself got his vote cast for the Senator from Illi- 
nois, although he was opposed to him. But the conventions in other States 
leaving the Democratic delegates to the instincts of their own judgment; leav- 
ing in operation the time-honored traditions of the party; not tying up their 
delegations by instructions, left them to act as they might think proper; and 
when they got to Charleston, by forcing the votes of all the minorities that 
were against Mr..DouGLAs, and freeing the hands of all the minorities that were 
in his favor, his friends had cast for him all the minorities, both those for him 
and those against him, in all the United States. That is the way he got one 



22 

vote more than half the convention. Now. what I was looking for was this : 
the distinct statement of a delegate from Massachusetts, (Mr. Butler, ) that there 
were fifteen steady, persistent votes against the Senator from Illinois from the 
State of New York alone. I am telling you what Mr. Butler ?aid. 

Mr. PUGH. I read his speech last night; I think he said twelve. 

Mr. BENJAMIN". I read it this morning; it said fifteen. It may have 
changed since last night. 

Mr. PUGH. Very well; 'fifteen delegates. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. He says there were fifteen delegates from New York alone 
who were steady, persistent opponents of Mr. Douglas; yet those votes were 
cast for him. There was a minority in Indiana; but those votes were cast for 
him. There were minorities in other States, which I added up ; and instead of 
having a majority of the delegates of the Democratic party throughout the 
United States in his favor, Mr. Dougias was in. a lean minority of hut one-third 
of the delegates, and that one-third exclusively from Republican States. The 
whole Democratic party of the United States, as its Democratic electoral voles 
will testify, was opposed to him unanimously. Mr. Butler says so. My friend 
from Minnesota (Mr. Rice) has just handed "me the extract in the Constitution 
of this morning; and I will read not the whole of it, but portions of it, and if 
I am wrong in ray memory as to fifteen, I will give up. 

Mr. PUGH. I read it in the Herald last night. 

Mr. BENJAMIN. Mr. Butler, in giving an account to his constituents at a 
meeting ^lled to censure him, but which approved and endorsed him after he 
was through, said : 

"In New York there were fifteen votes opposed to Judge Douglas from first to last, yet 
her thirty-five votes were cast for him on every ballot ; in Ohio, six votes " 

Mr. PUGH. Not one. 

Mr. BENJAMIN— 

" In Indiana, five votes; In Minnesota, two votes opposed to Kim, yet by that rule east for 
him, so that the majority was more apparent than real." 

I leave out the six votes from Ohio. The Senator from Ohio, who was a 
delegate himself, must certainly know better than the delegate from Massachu- 
setts, and I abandon the point to his superior knowledge; but here, without 
counting any more, fifteen in New York, five in Indiana, two in Minnesota, 
make twenty -two. Take twenty two from one hundred and fifty-two, and 
there remain one hundred and thirty, without counting a solitary vote against 
him from the State of Ohio. But, sir, I -will not enter into these minutite, 
which ought not to be entered into in the Senate, and which I certainly never 
would have thought of speaking of, but for the constant vaunt of the Senator 
from Illinois that the majority was his, and he was entitled to a nomination; 
that the party had backed his principles, and that we were all rebels against 
his high majesty. 1 should not have inquired into this matter but for that. 
And now what does this delegate say as the sum total of what occurred ? He 
says : 

" Now, with the South opposed to Judge Douglas, even to a disruption of the party ; with 
every Democratic free State voting against him; with two-thirds of the delegation of the 
great State of Pennsylvania firmly against iiim. one-half nearly of New York hostile, New 
Jersey divided, and the only State in New England where the Democracy can have much 
hope (Connecticut; nearly equally balanced, what was it the part of wisdom for your dele- 
gate to do V" 

That is the question Mr. Butler presents to his constituency. What does he 
say? 

" I found also that Judge Douglas was in opposition to almost the entire Democratic ma- 
jority of the Seriate of the United States. No matter who is right or who is wrong, it is not 
a pleasant position for a candidate of the Democratic party." 

This is Mr. Butler's language : 

" I found him opposed iy a verv large majority of the Democratic members of the House 
of Representatives." 



23 



v\ e have watched him here 



"It is doubtless all wrong that this should be so, yet so it is. I have heard that the sweet- 
est wine makes the sourest vinegar, but I never heard of vinegar sour enough to made sweet 
wine. Cold apathy and violent opposition are not the proline parent of votes. I (bund, worse 
than all tor a Democratic candidate for the Presidency^ that the Clerk of the Republican 
House of Representatives was openly quoted! as saying that the influential paper controlled 
by him would either support Douglas or.8EWA.BD, thus making himself, apparently, an un- 
pleasant connecting link between them. 

"•With these facts before trie', and impressing upon me the conviction that the nomination 
of Judge DOUGLAS could not he made with any hope of safety to the Democratic party, what 
was I to doV I will tell you what I did do, and I am afraid it is not what 1 ought to have. 
done. Yielding to your preference, I voted seven times for Judge Douglas, although my 
iudgment told me that my votes were worse than useless, as they gave him an appearance of 
strength in the convention which I felt lie had not, in fact, in the Democratic party." 

That is the gentleman who stands tip here, and as the embodiment of the 
Democratic party challenges the entire body of his Democratic fellow-Sena- 
tors. 

Now, Mr. President, all that I have said has been said somewhat in indigna- 
tion. It was not in human nature not to feel indignation at the charges so 
profusely scattered against me and my friends, and my State; but still, sir, 
after all "more in sorrow than in anper." tip to the years 1857 and 1858, no 
man in this nation had a higher or more exalted opinion of the character, the 
services, and the political integrity of the Senator from Illinois than 1 had. I 
can appeal to those who may have heard me in the last presidential canvass, 
in my State, where, for months together, day and night, I was travelling in 
support of the Democratic party, and helping as far as my humble abilities 
would admit, to break down the Know-Nothing party, which had then a de- 
cided majority of the voters oT our State inscribed in its lodges. We succeeded 
in that contest. The canvass was a successful one ; and it did so happen that, 
in the course of that canvass, 1 had again and again to appeal to my Demo- 
cratic fellow-citizens of the State of Louisiana to stand by the gallant Democ- 
racy of the North who stood by* us, to frown down this new organization, 
whose only effect could be to injure the Democratic candidate and his success; 
and then, in speaking of that bright galaxy of Democratic talent, Democratic 
integrity, and Democratic statesmanship, that I now see gathered and clustered 
around me, the central figure was the honored portrait of the Senator from 
Illinois. 

Sir, it has been with reluctance and sorrow that I have been obliged to pluck 
down my idol from his place on high, and refuse to him any more support or 
confidetiee as a member of the party. I have done so, I trust, upon no light 
or unworthy ground. I have not done so alone. The causes that have ope- 
rated on me have operated on the Democratic party of the United States, and 
have operated an effect which the whole future life of the Senator will be ut- 
terly unable to obliterate. It is impossible that confidence thus lost can be 
restored. On what ground has that confidence been forfeited, and why is it 
that we now refuse him our support and fellowship? I have stated our reason 
to-day. I have appealed to the record. I have not followed him back in the 
false issue or the feigned traverse that he makes in relation to matters that are 
not now in contest bet ween him and the Democratic party. The question is 
not what we all said or believed in 18-10 or in 1856. How idle was it to search 
ancient precedents, and accumulate old quotations from what Senators may 
have at different times said in relation to their principles and views. The pre- 
cise point, the direct arraignment, the plain and explicit allegation made 
against the Senator from Illinois is not touched by him in all of his speech. 

We accuse him for this, to wit: that having bargained with us upon a point 
upon which we were at issue, that it should be considered a judicial point ; that 
he would abide the decision ; that he would act under the decision, and con- 
sider it a doctrine of the party ; that having s n i d that to us here in the Senate, 
he went home, and under the stress of a local election, his knees gave way; 
his> whole person trembled. His adversary stood upon principle and was 
beaten; and lo ! he is the candidate of a mighty party for the Presidency of 
the United States. The Senator from Illinois faltered. He got the prize for 
which he faltered ; but lo ! the grand prize of his ambition to-day slips from his 
grasp because of his faltering in his former contest, and his success in the 



24 

canvass for the Senate, purchased for an ignoble price, has cost him the loss of 
the Presidency of the United States. 

Here were two men, struggling before the people of a State on two great 
sides of a political controversy that was dividing the Union, each for empire at 
home. One stood on principle — was defeated. To-day, where stands he? The 
other faltered — received the prize; but, to day, where stands he? Not at the 
head of the Democratic party of these United States. He is a fallen star. We 
have separated from him. He is right in saying we have separated from him. 
We have separated from him, not because he held principles in 1856 different 
from ours. We have separated from him, not because we are intolerant of op- 
position from anybody, for the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Pugh) is an honored 
member of our organization. We separated from him because he has denied 
the bargain that he made when he went home; because, after telling us here 
in the Senate that he was willing that this whole matter should be decided bv 
the Supreme Court, in the face of his people, he told them that he had got us 
by the bill; and that, whether the decision was for us or against us, the prac- 
tical effect was to be against us; and because he shows us now again that lit- 
is ready to make use of Black Republican arguments used against himself at 
home, and to put them forth against the Democratic party in speeches here in 
the Senate. 

Now, Mr. President, this will be represented as an attack on the honorable 
Senator from Illinois; but I finish my speech, as he did his, by saying "the 
Senate will bear me witness that I have not spoken on this subject until at- 
tacked ; all I have said is in self-defence I attack no man, and the world shall 
know if ever 1 speak again, it shall be in self-defence." (Laughter.) Mr. Pres- 
ident, the best defence is to carry the war into the enemy's country. I belong 
to no school of politicians that stand on the defensive. If attacked, I strike 
back, and ever shall. If the Senator from Illinois wants the world to know 
that he spoke only in self-defence, let the same measure of justice be meted out 
to me, and in answer to any one who can, by possibility, consider what I have 
said as an attack, I reply "self defence." (Laughter.) I wish my speech qual- 
ified just like that of the honorable Senator from Illinois. If his is an attack, 
mine is; if his is "self-defence" against some unknown person, mine also is 
"self-defence" against some body that has attacked me and nry State, whose 
name I do not know. (Laughter.) That is just my position, I state it plainly ; 
I am sorry the Senator is not here to hear it stated. 



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